1. Technical Field
The invention relates to managing network traffic and, in particular, to a method and system for providing service aware network caching.
2. Description of Related Art
In the past, servers serviced network traffic as the traffic arrived at the server. For example, when multiple requests for data were received at a server, the server would service each request in the order that the server received the requests. As network traffic increased and network congestion became an issue, however, administrators began searching for ways to service network traffic better.
One approach places a network caching device between clients and a server to prevent traffic from clients that request the same data within a certain time period from repeatedly reaching the server. Instead, the network caching device services the requests, thereby allowing the server to service other requests. However, as network activity continues to increase, network caching devices, themselves, are becoming a bottleneck in networks.